Gravitate
by HardfacedQueenofMisadventure
Summary: "His hand, cold, hard and unfeeling, was still locked tightly around her forearm." A near-fatal error, and a rescue from an unexpected source. Pre-Matrix.


Trinity had always known, somehow, that she'd meet her end in the Matrix, presumably locked in a death-battle with an Agent, the old advice of _run, just run _finally failing her. The way it played out in her head was poetic, in a grim sort of way. It wasn't the sort of thing she _liked _to picture, but living in cold, war-torn reality a few years was enough to turn anyone's thoughts towards the morbid. She'd often imagined being run down at the end of an alleyway, after she'd given all she had to give, cornered by the starkly anonymous men she'd been conditioned since her rebirth to fear, screaming her allegiance to the virtual sky as her body was pierced by innumerable bullets.

That wasn't how it was happening. She was running, yes, pursued by Agents also, but across a scaffold, hundreds of feet above ground level, clutching in one fear-chilled hand possibly the most vital piece of data they'd ever run across. Potentially… the identity of the One. She wasn't saying that she actually believed the folklore, but even her cynical heart could sense the significance behind this. To lose it would be fatal. No matter what, she had to get it to her checkpoint. Its physical form didn't really matter, it was just a representation of the data, information in a solid, tangible form, ready to be transferred, but she held it as if it were priceless.

And then… she slipped. Missed her footing just enough to lose her balance entirely (rookie mistake, rookie mistake, oh my god you _idiot). _She'd fallen before, in many previous training programs, but she'd reached the point where she trusted her agility enough to not think about the possibility of something like this happening. Stupid mistake to make. And now she was going to pay for it.

Mere seconds into her fall, metal-cold fingers wrapped around her wrist, pulling her up short with a jerk that almost dislocated her shoulder. For a moment all she could do was scream, too caught up in the panic of the fall and the relief at stopping to do anything else. Then she woke up a little, scrambling for a foothold, without so much as a thought as to who or what was holding her up.

Once her feet were planted firmly on solid ground and she'd taken a few deep, quelling breaths and gotten her head around the fact that she was still alive, she was once again gripped with fear. For an entirely different reason this time.

"Shit," was all she could say, still breathless. The Agent made a low sound of disapproval in the back of his throat, eyeing her coolly from behind black-tinted glass. _How'd that old saying go? Out of the frying-pan…_

"Language," the Agent chided atonally, his eyes never leaving hers, a gaze that seared, burned her more than it should have. She held her ground, refusing to be intimidated by him, especially now.

_An Agent saved my life. A goddamned Agent. _For a while, all she could do was stand there on that scaffold, wanting to look away, to run away, but somehow unable to find the will. His face gave nothing away, betrayed absolutely nothing; cold and impassive, inhumanly still. She blinked, unable to summon words.  
><em>What the hell? Why didn't he just… how did he get here? <em>So many questions like autumn leaves caught on a gust, impossible to pin down. _Should I be…grateful? Running for my life again? _

His hand, cold, hard and unfeeling, was still locked tightly around her forearm. She pulled away, took a few steps backwards. The Agent did nothing, remained silent. Trinity regarded him in silence for a few moments more, before forcing herself to draw away, maybe a little faster than was necessary. That whole encounter had been… unnerving, to say the least.

But something made her stop before he Agent was fully out of her line of sight. He was still watching her, even from a distance. Still standing there, unmoved, impassive.  
><em>He did save my life. Whatever his motives were, isn't it worth something? Anything at all?<em>

"Thank you," she murmured, just to say the words aloud; it felt like the thing to do. He wouldn't hear her from there, would he? _Would_ he? She glanced back at him for a second.

Just once, barely perceptible, but definite, precise, he nodded.

* * *

><p>…<strong>I don't even know. I was listening to Evanescence, and it was windy and cloudy, and I had a cold and possibly a fever. Let's leave it at that, and move on. That said, I do plan to write more fics for these two. Possibly chronological, possibly utterly random. You tell me.<br>Oh, and FuturisticDreams, if you're reading this, I'm sorry I've been taking so long in fulfilling your story request. I've been working on it whenever I've had the time, but so far I've not produced anything worth reading. Stick with me, though. **


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